Is there any point in going across the world to eat something or buy something or watch people squatting among their ruins? Travel is a state of mind. It has nothing to do with distance or the exotic. It is almost entirely an inner experience. Paul Theroux More Quotes by Paul Theroux More Quotes From Paul Theroux And that is all anyone can do, try to be honest about what he feels, what he's seen or thinks he's seen. Paul Theroux honest trying thinking Pain does not create a long-lasting memory, but the memory of luxury exerts itself for ever. Paul Theroux luxury pain memories It's not fashionable but I like to spit out of the window of a moving train. Paul Theroux spit window moving So far I had been travelling alone with my handbook and my Western Railway timetable: I was happiest finding my own way and did not require a liaison man. It had been my intention to stay on the train, without bothering about arriving anywhere: sight-seeing was a way of passing the time, but, as I had concluded in Istanbul, it was an activity very largely based on imaginative invention, like rehearsing your own play in stage sets from which all the actors had fled. Paul Theroux istanbul sight men You can't want to be a writer. You have to be one. Paul Theroux want The larger an English industry was, the more likely it was to go bankrupt, because the English were not naturally corporate people; they disliked working for others and they seemed to resent taking orders. On the whole, directors were treated absurdly well, and workers badly, and most industries were weakened by class suspicion and false economies and cynicism. But the same qualities that made English people seem stubborn and secretive made them, face to face, reliable and true to their word. I thought: The English do small things well and big things badly. Paul Theroux class order people A gun show is about like-minded people who feel as if everything has been taken away from them - jobs, money, pride. Paul Theroux pride taken jobs I believe I have a sunny disposition, and am not naturally a grouch. It takes a lot of optimism, after all, to be a traveler. Paul Theroux sunny optimism believe Maine is a joy in the summer. But the soul of Maine is more apparent in the winter. Paul Theroux summer winter joy A national crisis, a political convulsion, is an opportunity, a gift to the traveler. Nothing is more revealing of a place to a stranger than trouble. Even if a crisis is incomprehensible, as it usually is, it lends drama to the day and transforms the traveler into an eye witness. Paul Theroux eye opportunity drama An island is a fixed and finite piece of geography, and usually the whole place has been carved up and claimed. Paul Theroux geography pieces islands Writers are painful friends, and they are seldom friendly with others. They are insecure in the presence of other writers. Composers of certain kinds of music are the same--tormented and intolerant. Yet some arts not only make the artist social but make him depend upon sociability in order to succeed. Painting is one. Paul Theroux insecure order art I think I understand passion. Love is something else. Paul Theroux passion love-is thinking Fiction writing, and the reading of it, and book buying, have always been the activities of a tiny minority of people, even in the most-literate societies. Paul Theroux reading writing book I can't predict how reading habits will change. But I will say that the greatest loss is the paper archive - no more a great stack of manuscripts, letters, and notebooks from a writer's life, but only a tiny pile of disks, little plastic cookies where once were calligraphic marvels. Paul Theroux notebook reading loss Literary life used to be quite different in Britain in the years I lived there, from 1971 to 1989, because money was not a factor - no one made very much except from U.S. sales and the occasional windfall. Paul Theroux used different years Many aspects of the writing life have changed since I published my first book, in the 1960s. It is more corporate, more driven by profits and marketing, and generally less congenial - but my day is the same: get out of bed, procrastinate, sit down at my desk, try to write something. Paul Theroux marketing writing book Mark Twain was a great traveler and he wrote three or four great travel books. I wouldn't say that I'm a travel novelist but rather a novelist who travels - and who uses travel as a background for finding stories of places. Paul Theroux novelists book travel For years I felt that being respectable meant maintaining a sinister complacency, and the disreputable freedom I sought helped make me a writer. Paul Theroux complacency maintaining years ...a society without jaywalkers might indicate a society without artists. Paul Theroux artist might
